There’s a weird vibe in Caracas of economic improvement, with shortages slowly disappearing. But if you go past the surface of the incipient upgrades, you’ll see we’re far from real, stable development.

With the growing unofficial dollarization of the Venezuelan economy, most transactions in the poorer areas are done through foreign currency. This has generated a sense of prosperity in the capital, but it’s also one of the reasons the gap in social inequality has grown.

2020 might be the stage for new parliamentary elections in which chavismo expects to revert the effects of MUD’s 2015 victory. In the meanwhile, harassment and coercion have scraped off the opposition majority.